Psychalive » discipline

What to Do About Tantrums and Emotional Meltdowns

Tamsen Firestone — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:32:13 +0000

Dealing with your kids’ tantrums and mood swings can be one of parenting’s most frustrating challenges. From public meltdowns to prolonged fits, these extreme outbursts of emotion have the capacity to provoke extreme reactions in us.

Methods that are effective in dealing with the child’s natural expressions of anger or frustration don’t work in this intense emotional situation. At these times, parents find it difficult to get through to their children and help them cope with their feelings.

To help a kid having a temper tantrum or meltdown, the parent needs to understand what the child is experiencing. They need to realize that, presently, this very young person is completely overwhelmed by emotions. She cannot be reached. For her, the outside world is shut out and she is experiencing her own internal hell. The kid having a meltdown has no understanding of himself and of what he is feeling. He feels fragmented and out of control.

The methods for dealing with temper tantrums and meltdowns are different than those for dealing with normal anger and frustration. Appealing to the child with logic or threatening consequences is unproductive. The following suggestions are helpful for reaching and affecting the child who is in this distressful state:

Before:

It is advisable be proactive and stop your child’s crying before it escalates into a full-blown tantrum or meltdown. It is often possible to anticipate a temper tantrum or meltdown coming on by recognizing the behaviors that typically precede it. You can then head off the outburst with a distraction. You can distract your child by changing the subject, the activity or the environment that is causing her distress.

There is one type of distraction that adults must not offer children. If your child is having a tantrum because something has been denied her, you must not give in by offering her what has been denied. Doing this teaches children that they can manipulate people to get what they want by throwing a tantrum.

During:

When a tantrum or meltdown does occur, especially in public, all parents experience humiliation. They are embarrassed and fear that onlookers will regard them as faulty parents. However, do not let your self-consciousness or self-attacks affect your actions. Your focus should not be on worrying about how you are being seen, but on tending to the agony that your child is going through.

When your kid is in this state, do not send her to her room. Isolation is not a constructive solution because she is not being helped to deal with her feelings. During time alone, children in this distraught state are often tortured by angry fantasies. Therefore, it is especially valuable for you to make a point of being with your child in order to assist the her in coping with her powerful emotions.
When your child is having a tantrum or meltdown, you can sit with her as she goes through the tantrum. Do not try to talk your child out of her feelings, do not try to coax her or appeal to her logic. Do not get angry or offer a response that will fuel her anger and frustration. Let your child know that even though she feels like she is coming apart at the seams, you are comfortable with her emotions. You can communicate this by reflecting what your child is feeling:
“You’re really angry right now. That’s okay. I’ll just sit here with you while you feel it. I’ll sit here with you until it is over.”
“You’re so sad right now and you don’t even know why. It’s okay. I’ll stay with you until it passes. Don’t worry, we have plenty of time.”

The worst thing that adults can do when a child is having a tantrum or meltdown is become frustrated and agitated themselves; this will only heighten their child’s tension. By maintaining a calm, understanding and patient attitude, you create a stabilizing presence that will hold the child emotionally. The child who fears that she will fragment will feel contained by the adult and her agitation will subside. In cases where your child is feeling intense anger, you can hold her gently but firmly, allowing her to vent her rage.

The child having a temper tantrum or meltdown experiences the entire world as being overwhelmed by the emotions that she is feeling. By showing the child that you are not only not overwhelmed, but not threatened or upset by these emotions, you are offering your child a way out of a state that she perceives as inescapable.

After:

After the emotional period has passed, it is possible to have a calm discussion with your child about what happened. If your kid is old enough, talk about what preceded the outburst. Did something make him mad? Did something frustrate him? Did he feel sad? Did he feel disappointed?

Can your child describe what he was feeling during the tantrum or meltdown? Be sure to talk about how you felt. Tell him that it made you sad to see him feeling so bad. Say that even though his feelings were scary to him, they weren’t to you. Relay that you were glad to be there for him.

Then talk about the future, and what he can do the next time that he feels like this. What triggers can he be on the look out for? What did he learn about himself this time that might help him the next time he feels this way? Explain that even though, during a tantrum or meltdown, it feels like the bad feeling will last forever, it will end. Point out that it is over now. Helping him gain perspective is valuable.

As your child grows older, he will no longer need an adult to contain his intense emotions. Your child will learn from your response to his tantrums that strong feelings are not overwhelming and can indeed be managed.

Your Child and Self-Control: Job or Jail?

Jo Barrington — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:58:12 +0000

Whether your child grows up to lead a productive, satisfying life — or instead grows up to lead a life of crime — a new study shows that self-control is a determining factor. An added benefit for those who have learned this form of personal power at an early age? Fewer health problems and fewer financial problems, according to Terrie Moffitt, professor of psychology at Duke University and King’s College London.

NPR reported:

Self-control keeps us from eating a whole bag of chips or from running up the credit card. A new study says that self-control makes the difference between getting a good job or going to jail — and we learn it in preschool.

“Children who had the greatest self-control in primary school and preschool ages were most likely to have fewer health problems when they reached their 30s,” says Terrie Moffitt, a professor of psychology at Duke University and King’s College London.

Moffitt and a team of researchers studied a group of 1,000 people born in New Zealand in 1972 and 1973, tracking them from birth to age 32. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the best evidence yet on the payoff for learning self-discipline early on.

For further information on this study, and for a little parenting advice as to how to help your child with his or her self-development in this area:

Read the full article published here

How Over-Parenting Hurts Your Children… and You

Carolyn Joyce — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:21:31 +0000

As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself. ~Joyce Maynard

For many of us, becoming a parent is our introduction to unselfish love. For the first time in our life, a helpless, vulnerable person is completely dependent on us. They rely on us to feed them, clothe them, care for them and all the while, we are teaching them to care for themselves so that they can ultimately be independent of us. This would surely be spoken of as a selfless act.

While loving and nurturing your children is necessary to their successful growth, giving your whole life to them is not the making of an ideal parent. Parents too often lose sight of their own lives and take on their children’s lives as their own. In this process, parents forfeit essential parts of themselves, which leaves them less vital and alive as people. And the one thing that a child needs in a parent is a person who is vital and alive. Therefore, sacrificing yourself for your children can be the least selfless thing that you can do for them.

Joyce Catlett, co-author of Compassionate Child Rearing, states, “Therefore, it’s crucial for parents to live their own lives and have a life outside of caring for children. They can be the perfect parent, but if they’re not happy inside, the child will pick it up; they will pick up a lack of fulfillment in their lives.”

When parents fail to pursue their own interests, they risk over-identifying with their children and becoming overbearing. It is one thing to attend your child’s soccer games and cheer him or her on from the bleachers. It is another thing to arrive bearing a shopping cart of treats, a video-camera and a fully-stocked first aid kit. We’ve all seen that one father who runs up and down the sidelines, shouting and coaching his child. Or the mother who rushes on to the basketball court when her child falls down and bruises an elbow.

It’s important to acknowledge that the nurturance parents provide is only fully effective when it comes from a genuine feeling for the child as an individual, separate from themselves. When parents come to their child’s rescue, because it satisfies something in them to feel useful or to be seen as a savior, they often offer their children very little in the way of heartfelt empathy and true compassion. Instead, they teach the child to feel unhealthily dependent or ultimately rebellious against their over-attentive nature. On his Psychology Today blog, on the subject of Emotional Hunger Vs. Love, Dr. Robert Firestone explains,

Many parents overstep the personal boundaries of their children in various ways: by inappropriately touching them, going through their belongings, reading their mail, and requiring them to perform for friends and relatives. This type of parental intrusiveness seriously limits a child’s’ personal freedom and autonomy. Many mothers and fathers speak for their children, take over their productions as their own, brag excessively about their accomplishments, and attempt to live vicariously through them.

When the parent’s actions go beyond a sensitive and respectful care and concern for a child, the parent has overstepped a boundary. The over-identification of the parent is hurtful to the child. The focus and dependency of a full-grown adult becomes a great burden on a child’s small shoulders. “A lot of people lack a sense of what they want out of life. Children should never be used to fill this void. Imagine the pressure it puts on a child when they alone give their parents a sense of purpose,” said Catlett. “One of the best things you can do for your child is to do something for yourself; pursue your own life, and give them the space to pursue theirs.”

Catlett calls the debate over whether to go back to work or not after having a child a “mute argument.” Each parent is different. It’s about what fulfills you. If going to work leaves you feeling confident, happy and independent, the time that you spend with your children will be quality time because they will be spending it with the best version of you. If you choose to be a stay-at-home parent, your kids will thrive if they see you pursuing what you love and if they are included in these activities to whatever extent they are interested. Let your kids see what makes you happy and enjoy observing what makes them happy. Support their unique interests without concern about how they reflect on you.

In a recent interview for Prevention Magazine, Michelle Obama said:

I think my mother taught me what not to do. She put us first, always, sometimes to the detriment of herself. She encouraged me not to do that. She’d say being a good mother isn’t all about sacrificing; it’s really investing and putting yourself higher on your priority list. You can be a good mom and still work out, get your rest, have a career–or not. She encouraged me to find that balance.

Throughout my life, I’ve learned to make choices that make me happy and make sense for me. Even my husband is happier when I’m happy. He has always said, “You figure out what you want to do,” because he’s discovered that personal happiness is connected to everything. So I have freed myself to put me on the priority list and say, yes, I can make choices that make me happy, and it will ripple and benefit my kids, my husband, and my physical health.

Click here to read more from Michelle Obama’s interview.

Tantrums

admin — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:31:39 +0000

What to do about temper tantrums and meltdowns:

Dealing with a child who is having a temper tantrum or meltdown is challenging for even the most capable parents. Methods that are effective in dealing with the child’s natural expressions of anger or frustration don’t work in this intense emotional situation. At these times, parents find it difficult to get through to their children and help them cope with their feelings.

Before:

During:

After: